Harley Benton DC-Ukulele CH Reviews

The perfect gift for kids and adults!

I bought this ukalele for my 5 years old son and he is Very excited!!! Good sound and perfect quality.

Accurate for the price

It's an electric instrument with nylon strings, not much to expect there. I bought it to be able to put distortion and such on a uke but by now it's more of a novelty item on my wall. The strings don't stay in tune for long but that's to be expected for the price and quality of the product. Maybe I'm just using it wrong, I dunno. All in all, exactly what's to be expected for the price.

Looks hella cool though B-)

price/performance

it's so great that we can have such a great solid body ukulele for that price. It really deserves the price.

Fabulous little Ukulele, just one issue

I have recently purchased this Ukulele, and I must say, it is a brilliant piece of kit, and when amplified correctly, can be a true rock machine, but there is one issue. The knobs both act as a volume, not as a tone, and a volume. Which is now having to be fixed, but this is a minor oversight to the rest of this amazing Ukulele.

Perfect for price

Bought as gift for musician wanting to try out a ukulele. Recipient happy - definitely an attractive piece and has no complaints with sound or wiring as some others have. A good piece for the price

A great piece of kit for someone just getting into electric Ukes without spending a fortune.

Very easy to set-up,and the sound is awesome.

Highly recommended

Great Electric Uke

Ive had this for 3 years now and it still works perfectly

ive used to multiple times for performing and not a single complaint

If ACDC wanted a ukulele

This is a great ukulele that sounds great and is very fun to hook up to a a large amp and blast heavy metal while playing on such a small instrument. The only downfall to this instrument is that the strings it comes with aren't of the highest quality but once you tune it enough the strings will keep in tune fairly consistently.

Sound, great. Features, great except strings. Finish, solid although I do with the fretboard was finished differently.

For the price I would say this ukulele is solid.

Needs a few fixes and a setup- afterwards it is a (baby) rock dragon

This is a nice looking and solidly crafted instrument. Note that I did not say "finely" crafted- that's where you come in.. It badly needs a string height adjustment as well as an intonation fix- and you can do this by loosening the strings and then gently pulling the plastic riser that should be the "bridge" from the riser. Then you can sculpt it with an x-acto knife to make its "edge" recede a bit and then re-test...in the end on mine I had to move the string contact point back some 1,5 mm and I did that by scraping at the plastic to create a new edge further back. In the end I got something that looks like a "compensated acoustic guitar bridge" -look it up for refference .A quick way of intonating an uke is using..matchsticks! Take a match and slide it behind the nut- so now the strings have a point of contact further back; if that improves tuning, you need a compensated nut made, or leave the matchstick in (you can cut from its thickness to tune). If it makes matters worse, and you need to lengthen the strings, then you must gently scrape te leading edge of the bridge towards the back (angling it slightly ,as if sharpening a blade or creating a cutting edge). Take good care to eventually round this edge with a bit of sandpaper once you are done, in order to avoid cutting the strings.Do this with the bridge off the instrument! place back, re-tune, re-test, and re-sculpt if necessary- I know it's a lot of work but you do not need toolmarks on the finish!

Before all that , WARNING! you should sort out string height first if necessary by filing the bottom of the bridge with a bit of sandpaper or a fine file.The strings on mine were a mile high and it was all due to a very high bridge. Once string height is set proceed with the intonation. Careful as you handle the bridge, the piezo element beneath it is responsible for all the sound in this instrument. It is not glued, it is just crammed in there tightly under it and it is delicate. Pull straight up on the bridge and on reinstalling do not press down too hard. After the intonation and string height are ok, here comes the hard electric re-building part: you will need either copper foil (gardener's shops carry it , for keeping snails at bay, or electronic part shops, or the *bay or the *zon..or..) or conductive paint. I recommend copper foil -has lower resistivity and also holds better in time, as conductive paint becomes less so in time once properly and totally dry. Wrap a narrow sheet of adhesive two faced auto sticky tape around the electronics cavity if the copper foil is not already adhesive on one side and complete the shielding by leaving a bit of a "lip" that goes out of the cavity and along the top so to make contact with the shielding stuck from the factory on the small plastic lid (there's a sliver metallic foil there). Add another bit of tape in electrical contact with the shielding done so far all around the walls of the output jack socket cavity and as always, leave a lip out so that when mounted, the jack plate itself screws in this conducting tape lip, completing the shielding. Warning: Do use a bit of NON conductive, insulating, etc tape (or even cellophane or paper adhesive tape) around the wires going to the jack and the exposed jack lugs , you do not want the shielding tape you just carefully installed to short out your signal.

Once that's over with, it should be finally tunable and quiet. Too quiet, in fact, as some rightly said. But the posters that described the electrical repairs in detail are totally correct : this thingie needs a total electrical makeover. Do not be afraid, although it sounds radical it is just about switching some wires around and switching the provided cap with a 1.5 nanofarad or 2 nF as they previously advised. For the correct wiring diagrams, search online for "gibson junior 50's wiring" for a good source of inspiration. Yes it is for "something else entirely" but it's a good example of a tone-volume stack for one pickup, and the grand total of parts is : one TONE capacitor- that you will exchange as previously discussed, one TONE POT - the linear one from the two on this little uke, and one VOLUME POT- make sure it is the logarithmic one . Yes these things are wired "bass ackwards"from the factory and you must correct that. Searching diagrams for gibson junior wiring will provide you with some four or five different variants- just observe where the pickup , output jack and capacitor goes and how the wires are soldered and where, and to the same regardless of what was previously in your little uke. In the end after all this work you are rewarded with a surprisingly good sounding instrument. After all these mods, you will be able to pass this through different amp sims and mod your sound in really sick ways, and yes this thing can "metal" for realz if all solder joints are correct... high gain amps? check! High volume with almost no buzz at all ? Check! Dead silent on clean between the notes ? And clear and adequately loud sound when playing these ontes? Check.

If the volume is still low or uneven across the strings, please loosen the strings and gently pull out the bridge once more, and look at the piezo pickup stuck underneath. It might have been pushed sidewise a bit and needs to be set dead center and not twisted . Re-place and put the bridge back vertically, gently, retune.. good luck! DO NOT pull on the little output shielded cable on one end of the piezo sensor, as the whole thing is very fragile and that particular connection is hard to repair. If nothing works for the volume, you might have a broken piezo pickup, and you can replace it with a standard one from the guitar shops, but you have to cut it to length (delicate operation) and re-do the insulation on the exposed end. If a violin piezo pickup is available (of the same "stick" under the bridge type) it might be possible to just drop it in without any modification. Keep the old broken part, take measurements before buying.. in the end you'll be happy with a real rock uke. A baby dragon!

Great if you

As a beginner, I am in love with it! It's quiet enough so that I can play it in my shared flat.

I bought two of these for my son and I to have some fun during early days of lockdown.

And wow have we had months of fun with these.

Few problems : for the price a great ukulele

Nice little ukulele for the price, once I had sorted out the wiring issues. It looks good and feels good with a nice smooth neck with good fretwork.

The intonation is a tad out as you move high up the neck, I only notice it as I use it for melodic picking and for £49 I can live with it.

The tone control was acting like a volume pot and the the instrument was humming really loudly.

I found that it was wired incorrectly : I also found that they were using the audio pot (A]

For the tone and the linear pot (B) for the volume . It would normally be the other way round.

I completely rewired it the correct way : painted the cavity with conductive shielding paint and as recommended by another reviewer I changed the tone capacitor to a 2.2NF value

Result : everything now works as it should , I have a usable tone control and the ukulele is as quiet as a mouse even plugged into a high gain amplifier.

Some reviewers have no problems, so I guess it could be down to whoever wired the instrument at the factory.

I have fitted it with a new set do Aquila strings. I also fitted it with a worth, Brown low G string. This works and it sounds great.

For £49 it’s a bargain given that I had to change the wiring .

Excellent for the price

It's about 50€ for an electric ukelele.

Pros:

- Super silent (you can practice at night without disturbing anyone);

- Concert size (most common size);

- Inexpensive;

- Nice finish.

Cons:

- The strings that it comes with are really bad but serviceable;

- The knobs are a little noisy sometimes, don't know why;

- The output is SUPER low. Really get a preamp if you want to amplify this.

Great Fun

Fun little uke, looks brilliant and is great value (gig bag and jack lead included!). My one criticism is that it could do with a more sensitive pickup, otherwise it’s a solidly made and stylish instrument.

Good but not great

As with all Harley Benton stuff, it great for the money but don’t expect too much. Nice finish and pretty sturdy. Pickup is very quiet and the sound isn’t the best to be fair. Plays fine though.

It is good enough for the price

It's fine for the price, nevertheless the frets are not quite calibrated. The tuning doesn't match the frets which could be uncomfortable if you don't know how to tune by ear.

Love it

Bought to use at home during lockdown unplugged to avoid annoying others. For that it works fine.

Got it yesterday, it in perfect condition, no marks or scratches. Really looks good.

Strings a bit stretchy still not bedded in, I see from other reviews some have changed them but I think these are fine for now.

Did try it with my amp and did find some settings where it sounded ok but will at some point investigate the wiring in the uke.

Overall really plesed with it, can't fault the finish or looks and does what I want it do. Certainly can't complain at the price.

Excellent

I fell in love with this ukulele as soon as I unzipped the gig bag.

Wow, for the money it looks wonderful, has a nice weight to it and sounds good through my little practice amp. I can’t wait to try some effects with it!

Fab solid body ukulele for the price!

This is a great little ukulele for the price. Had great fun using it with pedals and apart from a little interference when using louder volume I would highly recommend this ukulele as an entry into the world of electric ukes.

For the money, it's great!

First off, this ukulele looks great! I like the SG shape and it looks just like a mini electric guitar. It feels great holding and playing this thing. For the price it's awesome but of course there are some flaws. When I got it it was all covered in scratches, the strings it came with are not very good and the tuners aren't that good. Overall I really love this product and for the price you can't go wrong!